Thinking About Design

We did some design work recently for Southern Cross Enterprises, a brand new startup. The brief was to design something they could take into a meeting with a new supplier or client that introduced the business. The solution was a single-page A4 and a presentation folder with their logo embossed on the front.

Our thinking behind the design was to find a way to tell the story of the business visually with as little copy as possible. This is simply because when someone picks up a piece of marketing, they scan it with the visual centre of their brain first and then make a subconscious decision whether or not it is worth reading. Reading is a massive investment of brain power (see Kahneman’s THINKING FAST AND SLOW). The images can’t just be pretty – they have to sell the story – in this case, a washroom paper manufacturing business that provides all of the benefits of dealing directly with China but with the added advantage of dealing with Australian management who understand your business.